Double Review: Savages and Deviants by Natalie Bennett
This series. It is not for everyone. Heed the trigger/content warnings. It relishes its darkness. 4 Blood Drenched STARS
Savages, Book One Review
“He was born sick. I was fucked in the head. Together, we were Savages.”
Savages. My god, this book. I both loathed and loved this story. It’s so completely utterly unapologetically fucked up. If you have absolutely any triggers, if you do not absolutely love dark novels, then for the love of god, do not read this book.
I don’t think I’ve read anything quite like this, and I adore dark novels with every last blackened part of my bookish soul. This book though, holy shit. My jaw dropped a few times let me tell you.
A post-apoaolytpic world with so many degrees of dark and twisted. You just have to suspend all of your triggers, every last bit of. . .morality in your reading and just deep dive. The subject matter is mind-blowing, childhood sexual abuse (that thankfully isn’t graphically detailed), rape, murder, bloody sex, cannibalism, torture, and on and on and on.
It’s fucked up y’all. It’s also fantastically written and highly addictive story wise, I need to know more about these characters and the dark toxic love that is brewing between them. Calista and Romero are dynamite in the dark mind-fuck side of book world and the side characters are just as intriguing. Proceed with caution, if you do dare to jump, you’ll probably end up loathing and loving the hell out of these characters. Also, there is a cliffhanger, thank god the next book is already out in the world.
“Now I understand why her skin was white as snow: it was a canvas meant to be covered in red. She looked like a goddess covered in blood, a homicidal angel with devil horns.”
Deviants, Book Two Review
“He was the oxygen in my blood, a dangerous toxin I would willingly inhale over and over again so I could feel alive.”
Okay, so I’m apparently a morally ambiguous reader and my love for this book fully unequivocally proves this notion to be true. My limits were tested with every screaming blood drenched paragraph.
I could not – would not – stop reading for all the candy hearts in the world.
This series, this book, these characters, this crazy psychopathic world.
It’ll hypnotize you and hold you captive, like being drowned in the tub, except you won’t fight it, you’ll love every dirty despicable moment of suffocation.
I’m mind-fucked over here.
I’ve always loved dark fucked up characters and when you give them an equally dark and fucked up significant other, I am here for it.
It’s catnip for my dark bookish soul.
“He was a living nightmare feared by everyone, and I’d never felt safer than I did wrapped in his arms.”
Calista and Romero are decidedly certifiably insane and they adore every single moment of their insanity together. “You ever wondered what happens when a tornado meets a volcano?” Well, your days of wondering are finished, because these two – they are what happens.
They are definitely the King and Queen of a blood stained kingdom, with their darkened crowns, and their acolytes worshiping their every move.
“Cali was my perfect disease-I craved the sickness in her like I needed air to breathe.”
The first book ends on a cliffhanger, this one ends on a quiet whimper. You know there is more to come and yet. . .even if I never stepped back into the Badlands I’d be content with the whimpering death knolls of this entry. While we do get some answers, I didn’t feel as if I ever got enough answers. I wanted to know more. But again, I’m content with this ending.
“This was the Badlands, the wonderland of hell.”
The ending is a bit rushed. It’s also loaded in sex, death, torture, sick love, a satanic cult, cannibalism, more sex, characters that will drive you mad, more death, more love, and so much more crazy.
If you can’t handle the heat, stay the fuck out of the kitchen.
This is not a series, or a book for the faint of heart. Seriously, those with triggers in their reading need not apply to be apart of this journey. Don’t ruin it for the rest of us, who crave some dark fucked up goodness in our reading material.
“She was under my skin like a parasitic poison. I fucking hated her. I was addicted to her. I fucking loved her. I think.”
Natalie Bennett is a badass writer, she pushes the edges and never conforms in her storytelling, she goes there and yet it never feels as if it’s for shock value, it’s just organic to these characters and the story they are telling.
Brava.
I’m onto the next book, because I just can’t stop this crazy train, I’m on it now.
“Romero was irrefutably deranged and diabolically astute. He was a lethal fucking cocktail that came with a hazardous warning label, and I would die being blissfully inebriated by him.”
